Do you find yourself battling chronic stress while struggling with weight gain? You might be overlooking a crucial factor: cortisol. Cortisol, often referred to as the "stress hormone," helps regulate various functions in the body’s stress response, including energy metabolism, blood sugar levels, and inflammation.
Cortisol is a vital steroid hormone produced by the adrenal glands that plays a central role in the body's response to both physical and emotional stress. While cortisol levels typically follow a natural daily rhythm-peaking in the morning and decreasing at night-chronically elevated levels can negatively impact the body. This article explores the intricate relationship between cortisol and weight loss, delving into how this hormone affects your body, disrupts sleep, and influences weight management efforts. By understanding these connections, you can make informed choices to manage cortisol levels and improve overall health and well-being.
What is Cortisol?
Cortisol is a steroid hormone, specifically a glucocorticoid, made and released by your adrenal glands. You may mainly think of cortisol when it comes to stress, but it’s an essential hormone that affects almost every organ and tissue in your body.
It plays many other important roles, including:
- Regulating how your body uses glucose (sugar) for energy.
- Decreasing inflammation.
- Regulating blood pressure.
- Helping control your sleep-wake cycle.
Your body continuously monitors your cortisol levels to maintain steady levels (homeostasis). High or low cortisol levels can be harmful to your health.
Read also: Manage Cortisol for Weight Loss
Cortisol as a Stress Hormone
Yes, cortisol plays a key role in managing your body’s stress response. Your body releases cortisol when you experience any of the following types of stress:
- Acute (short-term) stress
- Chronic (long-term) stress
- Traumatic stress
But cortisol has many other functions, too.
How Cortisol Affects the Body
Cortisol affects nearly every organ system in your body and helps regulate several key functions.
- Regulating your body’s stress response: During times of stress, your body can release cortisol after releasing its “fight or flight” hormones, like adrenaline. This happens so you continue to stay on high alert. Cortisol also triggers the release of glucose (sugar) from your liver. This provides fast energy during times of stress.
- Regulating metabolism and blood sugar levels: Metabolism refers to the chemical processes in your body that allow you to live and function. Thousands of metabolic processes happen at all times. Cortisol affects your metabolism by helping regulate how your body uses glucose (sugar) for energy. The hormone does this in many ways. For example, cortisol triggers your pancreas to decrease insulin and increase glucagon. Insulin lowers blood glucose (sugar). Glucagon raises it. Cortisol also acts on other bodily tissues to manage glucose use.
- Suppressing inflammation: In short spurts, cortisol can boost your immunity by limiting inflammation. But if you have consistently high levels of cortisol, your body can get used to it. This can lead to inflammation and a weakened immune system.
- Regulating blood pressure: The exact way in which cortisol regulates blood pressure in humans is unclear. But elevated levels of cortisol can cause high blood pressure, and lower-than-normal levels of cortisol can cause low blood pressure.
- Helping control your sleep-wake cycle: Most people have lower cortisol levels in the evening when they go to sleep. And they have peak levels in the morning right before they wake up. This suggests that cortisol plays a key role in your circadian rhythm and how your body wakes up.
How the Body Controls Cortisol Levels
Your body has an elaborate system to regulate your cortisol levels. Your hypothalamus and pituitary gland control the cortisol production in your adrenal glands. The process goes like this:
- When the cortisol level in your blood falls, your hypothalamus releases corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH).
- This directs your pituitary gland to make adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH).
- ACTH then triggers your adrenal glands to make and release cortisol.
To have healthy cortisol levels, your hypothalamus, pituitary gland, and adrenal glands must all be functioning properly.
Read also: Is the Cortisol Cocktail Effective?
High and Low Cortisol Levels: Causes and Symptoms
To fully understand how cortisol impacts weight, it's crucial to know what happens when its levels are imbalanced.
What causes high levels of cortisol?
If you have high levels of cortisol (hypercortisolism) for a long time, it’s usually Cushing syndrome. Causes of high cortisol levels and Cushing syndrome include:
- Taking high doses of corticosteroid medications, like prednisone, prednisolone, or dexamethasone
- Tumors that produce ACTH - usually in your pituitary gland
- Adrenal gland tumors that cause excess cortisol
Symptoms of high cortisol levels, or Cushing syndrome, can include:
- Weight gain, especially in your face and belly
- Fatty deposits between your shoulder blades
- Wide, purple stretch marks on your belly
- Muscle weakness in your upper arms and thighs
- High blood sugar, which often turns into Type 2 diabetes
- High blood pressure
- Excessive hair growth (hirsutism) in females
- Weak bones (osteoporosis) and bone breaks (fractures)
What causes low levels of cortisol?
Healthcare providers call lower-than-normal cortisol levels (hypocortisolism) adrenal insufficiency. There are two types of adrenal insufficiency: primary and secondary.
Primary adrenal insufficiency most often happens when your immune system attacks your adrenal glands. It’s called Addison’s disease. An infection or blood loss to the tissue in your adrenal glands can also lead to a lack of cortisol.
Read also: Cortisol's Role in Sleep Apnea
Secondary adrenal insufficiency happens if you have an underactive pituitary gland (hypopituitarism) or a pituitary tumor. These conditions can limit ACTH production, which limits cortisol production.
The Connection Between Cortisol and Weight
Cortisol significantly impacts weight management. When cortisol levels surge, they trigger physiological responses that promote weight gain. These include increased fat storage, particularly in the abdominal area, and a slowed metabolism, making it harder to shed excess pounds. Additionally, cortisol stimulates insulin release, raising blood sugar levels and triggering cravings for high-calorie, high-carbohydrate foods.
Cortisol plays a major role in weight management, and its effects extend far beyond stress. By recognizing the signs of cortisol imbalance and adopting stress-reduction techniques, prioritizing sleep, exercising regularly, and making mindful dietary choices, you can positively influence your cortisol levels and improve your overall health. Managing cortisol is a gradual process requiring consistent lifestyle changes.
How Cortisol Impacts Weight Gain
When cortisol levels are high, the body is signaled to store more energy in the form of fat, particularly around the abdomen. This response stems from our evolutionary history, where stress was associated with food scarcity. Further elevated levels can lead to increased cravings for high-sugar and high-fat foods, which are often comforting during stressful times.
Chronic high cortisol can also contribute to insulin resistance, a condition where the body’s cells become less responsive to insulin. Insulin is crucial for regulating blood sugar levels and facilitating the storage of glucose for energy. When insulin resistance occurs, blood sugar levels remain elevated, promoting fat storage and making weight loss more challenging.
If you’ve been feeling stressed and have noticed fat accumulating around your midsection, cortisol might be playing a role. High cortisol levels over time break down muscle tissue to release amino acids for energy. Chronic stress equals chronically high cortisol. Elevated cortisol levels can boost your appetite, particularly for high-calorie, sugary, and fatty foods.
The Role of Stress in Weight Management
There are strong connections between the brain and stomach. Many times, people overeat because they’re stressed, anxious, or depressed. To make things worse, we learn from a very young age that food brings us comfort.
Stress actually plays a large role in your waistline and how easily you can lose weight. For example, multiple studies show how stress and lack of sleep can lead to an increase in your cortisol levels (the stress hormone).
High Cortisol from Stress vs. Hypercortisolism
High cortisol from stress can be triggered by frequent emotional and physical life stressors, as well as poor diet or even sleep deprivation.
Hypercortisolism, or Cushing’s Syndrome, is a medical condition often caused by a tumor in the pituitary or adrenal glands. It can also be caused by long-term steroid use.
“Moon face,” also known as “cortisol face,” is a condition that causes a round, puffy-looking face due to accumulated fat on the sides of the face.
The Impact of Dieting on Cortisol and Weight
Prior research has demonstrated that dieting, or the restriction of caloric intake, does not lead to long-term weight loss. A study tested the hypothesis that dieting is ineffective because it increases chronic psychological stress and cortisol production - two factors that are known to cause weight gain.
The study found that monitoring one’s diet increased perceived psychological stress, and restricting one’s caloric intake increased total daily cortisol.
Monitoring one’s diet involved continuously recording consumed food. Restricting, on the other hand, increased the total cortisol output among the participants, consistent with previous research. This finding may seem unexpected, as restricting caloric intake can trigger mechanisms to reduce energy expenditure, including reduced corticotrophin-releasing hormone output, which, in turn, may reduce cortisol downstream. However, restricting caloric intake may be a biological stressor because one of the main functions of cortisol is to increase the availability of energy in the body. The stress resulting from restricting one’s caloric intake to a mere 1200 kilocalories, therefore, may have reduced the absolute amount of energy available to the body, therefore leading to increased cortisol output to release energy stores.
Dieting is likely psychologically stressful. As dieting, by definition, is an act of restriction of eating, this deprivation elicits negative emotion. Dieting involves not merely resisting temptation, but also a physically aversive feeling of being hungry. In addition to restricting one’s intake, there is another main task in dieting: monitoring one’s caloric intake. Research indicates that frequent, repetitive hassles can accumulate over time to comprise a chronic stressor that has negative health consequences. Monitoring food and calorie intake during a diet may be one of these daily hassles.
The relationship between dieting and both perceived stress and cortisol has been investigated in cross-sectional and longitudinal studies. For example, in a study of 17,159 adolescent females, French and colleagues found that dieting five or more times in the past year was correlated with emotional stress in Whites, Blacks, and Asians. Researchers have long known that fasting and starvation are associated with an elevation of cortisol or failure to suppress cortisol after a dexamethasone suppression test. In addition, studies have found that higher dietary restraint (a measure of dieting) is associated with higher 24-hour urinary free cortisol concentrations, and cortisol-creatinine ratios, salivary cortisol, and cortisol awakening response.
Cortisol and Sleep Disruption
Cortisol, the body’s primary stress hormone, is essential for maintaining overall health. However, when cortisol levels remain elevated for long periods of time due to chronic stress, the effects can disrupt both sleep and weight loss efforts. This hormone, often called the “fight or flight” hormone, affects many bodily functions, including metabolism, sleep patterns, and even our ability to maintain a healthy weight.
Cortisol follows a natural daily rhythm, peaking in the early morning to help us wake up and gradually declining throughout the day. This cycle is integral to the body’s circadian rhythm, which regulates sleep and wake cycles. However, when cortisol levels are too high-often due to prolonged stress-it can lead to disrupted sleep patterns. Elevated levels in the evening can delay the onset of sleep, prevent deep sleep stages, and lead to frequent awakenings throughout the night. Individuals with consistently high levels often experience insomnia or restless sleep, which can lead to chronic sleep deprivation.
Strategies to Manage Cortisol Levels and Promote Weight Loss
When cortisol levels are too high, they can significantly impact overall health and well-being. Common signs of cortisol imbalance include weight gain-particularly in the midsection-and difficulty losing weight despite a healthy diet and exercise routine.
Managing cortisol levels is a cornerstone of achieving better sleep and effective weight management. Chronic stress and elevated cortisol create a cycle that disrupts sleep, increases cravings, and promotes fat storage, making it challenging to reach health goals. By incorporating stress management practices like mindfulness, regular exercise, and sleep hygiene, you can reduce cortisol levels and create a more balanced environment for your body and mind.
While there may be many stressors in your life potentially contributing to elevated cortisol, there are several effective methods for managing your levels and preventing or combating weight gain.
Stress-Reduction Techniques
Practicing mindfulness and relaxation techniques can significantly lower cortisol levels by calming the body's stress response. Meditation, yoga, and deep breathing exercises promote relaxation and can be done anywhere, making them accessible tools for managing daily stress. Regular practice improves mental clarity, emotional balance, and sleep quality.
- Mindfulness practices: Mindfulness practices, such as meditation and deep breathing exercises, have been shown to reduce cortisol levels. Research suggests that even short, daily sessions of meditation can significantly decrease stress and improve sleep quality.
- Stress management classes: Learning how to respond to life's ups and downs with stress reduction activities (like mindfulness exercises) helps you manage stress in a thoughtful, healthy way.
Exercise Regularly
Regular physical activity is one of the best ways to reduce cortisol. However, the intensity and type of exercise matter. Moderate-intensity activities, such as brisk walking, swimming, or cycling, have been shown to reduce cortisol over time.
- Yes, exercise can help regulate cortisol - but more isn’t always better.
- Physical activity is one of the most effective ways to reduce stress and lower cortisol levels. Aerobic exercises, like walking, running, or cycling, release endorphins that improve mood and decrease stress hormones.
Establish a Consistent Sleep Schedule
Sleep is essential for regulating cortisol levels, as the hormone follows a natural daily rhythm. Lack of sleep or inconsistent sleep patterns can disrupt this rhythm, causing cortisol levels to remain elevated. Prioritize a consistent sleep schedule by going to bed and waking up at the same time each day, aiming for 7-9 hours a night.
- Ensuring a consistent sleep routine can significantly impact cortisol levels. Sleep hygiene practices, such as maintaining a regular sleep schedule, avoiding screens before bed, and creating a calming bedtime routine, can help stabilize cortisol levels and improve sleep quality.
- Sleep is when your body resets. Poor sleep can spike cortisol levels and mess with your hunger hormones.
Eat a Well-Balanced Diet
Diet plays a critical role in cortisol regulation. Consuming whole, nutrient-dense foods helps stabilize blood sugar levels, which in turn prevents cortisol spikes. Focus on a balanced diet with plenty of vegetables, fruits, lean proteins, healthy fats, and whole grains.
- Your body needs fuel to function, and skipping meals or eating under stress can make cortisol worse.
Incorporate Cortisol-Reducing Foods
Certain foods can help lower cortisol levels by providing essential nutrients that support the body's stress response. Leafy greens like spinach and kale are rich in magnesium, which has been shown to reduce cortisol. Berries, high in antioxidants, combat oxidative stress in the body.
Avoid Excessive Caffeine and Alcohol
While it might be tempting to reach for caffeine or sugary snacks during stressful times, these can elevate cortisol levels further. Caffeine stimulates cortisol release, which can interfere with sleep and worsen stress.
- While a morning cup of coffee or an occasional glass of wine might feel like a stress reliever, too much caffeine or alcohol can actually prolong cortisol elevation.
- Caffeine: When consumed in excess, especially on an empty stomach or during already stressful times, caffeine can both spike cortisol and interfere with sleep quality.
Consider Adaptogens
Adaptogens like ashwagandha, Rhodiola, and holy basil are natural herbs that help the body adapt to stress by stabilizing cortisol production. These adaptogens have been shown to improve stress resilience, support mental clarity, and improve sleep quality.
Practice Mindful Eating
Another powerful tool for managing weight gain due to stress is practicing mindful, or intuitive, eating.
Mindfulness comes from a Buddhist concept meaning to be fully present and aware of what you’re doing at a given moment. Mindful eating applies this concept to food, encouraging you to be fully aware of your eating experience, including specific cues, such as hunger, fullness, taste, and texture. One large cross-sectional study found an association between the practice of intuitive eating and a lower body weight.
A simple way to start practicing mindful eating is to do away with distractions at meals, allowing you to be fully aware of hunger and fullness cues.
Seek Professional Support
Another potential way to deal with weight gain that could be related to high cortisol levels is to speak with a qualified practitioner, such as a psychologist or registered dietitian.
A therapist can assist you in coming up with some strategies to reduce overall stress, which in turn may help you manage emotional eating. On the other hand, a dietitian can provide nutrition education to equip you with the tools you need to make more healthful decisions surrounding food.
The dual-prong approach to improving your food habits and emotional well-being is an excellent step in preventing or combating weight gain.